


I look up as I walk

by ToxicPineapple



Series: Femslash February 2021 [12]
Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst, Apocalypse, Bittersweet Ending, Conversations, Developing Relationship, F/F, Femslash February, Implied Character Death, Melancholy, Mentions of Violence, Minor Character Death, Post-Apocalypse, non-graphic mentions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29214600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxicPineapple/pseuds/ToxicPineapple
Summary: “Hey, Ibuki found something!” Ibuki announces. Her voice, musical as ever, carries, and Akane snaps to attention, watching Ibuki fish something solid and round from the rubble, cheerfully scampering back over, the way Akane’s old dog used to whenever he found something he thought would be helpful. It’s kinda the same deal, Akane thinks, as Ibuki plops herself down on her own backpack, shrugging off her cardigan and starting to wipe whatever it is down. “Ooooh, the strings are still intact, too! Wowie! Ibuki’s lucky day, ehehe!”“What is it?” Akane asks, with a frown. It looks… vaguely familiar, like an instrument, maybe like a guitar, though Akane has only ever heard an actual guitar once, barely seen it more than that in pictures, so she can’t say for certain. It’s a lot smaller, though, than Akane thinks a guitar ought to be. Maybe she’s misremembering?“It’s an ukulele,” Ibuki explains.---Ibuki and Akane find an ukulele in the rubble.---Femslash February day twelve: Music
Relationships: Mioda Ibuki/Owari Akane
Series: Femslash February 2021 [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137446
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	I look up as I walk

**Author's Note:**

> written for femslash february day twelve! the prompt i used was "music" and you can find a complete list of prompts in the series description
> 
> "I look up as I walk  
> So the tears won’t fall  
> Remembering those spring days  
> And tonight, I am all alone
> 
> I look up as I walk  
> Counting the stars with tearful eyes  
> Remembering those summer days  
> And tonight, I am all alone
> 
> Happiness lies beyond the clouds  
> Happiness lies above the sky
> 
> I look up as I walk  
> So the tears won’t fall  
> But the tears well up as I walk  
> For tonight, I am all alone"
> 
> \- Ue o Muite Arukou, Sakamoto Kyu

Akane kicks at a pile of rubble, watching it crumble into ashes over the toe of her boot, and lets out a sigh, shaking her head a little so that she can dislodge her hair, tangled and matted as it is, from the inside of her neck. Eventually she moves her arm to sweep her fingers underneath the ponytail and flips it onto her back, letting out a breath. It really is hot outside, the sun blazing what feels like a thousand degrees overhead, and the heat does nothing for the smell of ash, of rot, that permeates this area. Akane can’t tell what this waste site used to be, and she’s not sure she wants to know.

Dwelling on the past never is a whole lot of help, anyway. Akane’d rather keep her eyes fixed on her next meal. At least that’s palatable.

“Everything’s trashed,” Akane calls, over her shoulder, glancing around for Ibuki. Several yards away, Ibuki is crouching, her blue hair done up in a bun with a broken chopstick shoved through, using the other half of it to sift through the ashes. Akane watches her wrinkle her nose as she moves a particularly big piece of rubble out of the way, probably from the smell. Who knows what-- or who, rather-- can be found in this pile. Akane doesn’t really want to think about it, even if she’s used to it. “You findin’ anything?”

“Nooot yet! But Ibuki is remaining optimistic,” Ibuki chirps. She springs to her feet, and Akane takes a moment to admire her energy as she bounds back over to Akane’s side, the toes of her sneakers barely disturbing the piles of junk that she dances between, coming to a stop next to Akane, a bright smile on her face. “There’s gooootta be something! Piles of junk like this usually have something of use, or they wouldn’t have been burned.” Ibuki nods seriously. “Besides, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure!”

That statement doesn’t have a lot of meaning in a place like this, but even before the catastrophe, Akane didn’t have the energy to pick arguments she didn’t have the brainpower to win, so she leaves it be, turning to frown at the gunk. “Well, you can go ahead n’ look. I’m not gonna be much good to ya right now.” She jostles her cast, as though for emphasis, and watches Ibuki’s pink eyes dart down to her arm, brows knitting together in a rare show of concern. Ibuki is emotive, extraordinarily so, in fact, and she cries often; but it takes a lot to get Ibuki to feel any kind of serious emotion in a calm way. She’s more for loud expressions of rage or sorrow, wailing fits when she doesn’t find what she’s looking for, violent outbursts when she’s ranting about how unfair it is, that they were born into a world like this.

But it happens, sometimes, and Akane’s gotten better at picking up on it, even with her own admittedly unobservant eyes.

“Besides, I dunno what’s here,” Akane gestures off at a pile of rubble that’s still steaming, wrinkling her nose at the smell. She’s familiar with the smell of burning flesh by now, accustomed to it, even, but that’s so different from liking it. Akane’s never going to like it. And she doesn’t want to. It just sucks she’s so desensitised now. Dead bodies are just a part of the scenery, by now.

“Akane-chan isn’t looking hard enough,” Ibuki sighs, puffing out her cheeks. Her smile returns after a moment though. “But hey, hey, hey! That’s fine. I bet your old lady bones are tired. Why don’tcha go take a seat, and then Ibuki’ll find anything useful here? Y’know they say if you spin a broken arm three times it’ll be magically fixed?”

Akane’s pretty sure Ibuki just made that up. “Next time you break your arm, you should show me,” Akane says, but she does turn around to go find a seat, as instructed. She shrugs off her backpack and drops it into a relatively clear spot in the ashes, plopping down on top of it and tilting her head back to watch as her friend keeps picking through the ashes. It’s kinda a good thing that Ibuki is here and doing this, even if Akane kinda drags her feet about it. She’s got nowhere near the amount of patience or attention that Ibuki does for this stuff, which is surprising, because Ibuki’s barely got an attention span for literally anything else.

She’s kinda remarkable, honestly, and Akane lets herself think about it for a moment, watching Ibuki reach back to adjust her bun, wiping a bead of sweat off her forehead. She almost glistens in the sunlight, her trainers crunching over the ashes, a determined grin staying fixed on her face. Akane wonders sometimes what Ibuki would be like in a different world, where she didn’t watch her own two parents burn to death in the catastrophe, where she didn’t have to live by herself most of her life until Akane came around to find her. Wishing for a different kind of world is a fruitless endeavour-- it’s the sort of thing they just have to  _ make,  _ and there’s no way Akane’s good enough to do that-- but it’s hard not to when she’s looking at Ibuki.

Ibuki deserves a good world, Akane thinks. A good life. The ones they read about in those books. She deserves to be happy. Akane… well, Akane’s hurt enough people with these hands of her that there are permanent scars on her knees and knuckles from knocking into people’s skulls; enough that Akane thinks this broken arm of hers is more a message than a curse. At least people stay safe from her fists when she can’t fight.

“Hey, Ibuki found something!” Ibuki announces. Her voice, musical as ever, carries, and Akane snaps to attention, watching Ibuki fish something solid and round from the rubble, cheerfully scampering back over, the way Akane’s old dog used to whenever he found something he thought would be helpful. It’s kinda the same deal, Akane thinks, as Ibuki plops herself down on her own backpack, shrugging off her cardigan and starting to wipe whatever it is down. “Ooooh, the strings are still intact, too! Wowie! Ibuki’s lucky day, ehehe!”

“What is it?” Akane asks, with a frown. It looks… vaguely familiar, like an instrument, maybe like a guitar, though Akane has only ever  _ heard  _ an actual guitar once, barely seen it more than that in pictures, so she can’t say for certain. It’s a lot smaller, though, than Akane thinks a guitar ought to be. Maybe she’s misremembering?

“It’s an ukulele,” Ibuki explains. She plucks the strings, and they come out discordant, and Akane watches Ibuki wrinkle her nose and start tuning the nob. “Everything must’ve fallen just right so that it would be protected! Must be fate.”

Akane doesn’t believe in fate. “Yeah, sure,” she huffs. “It’s like a uh… guitar, right?”

“Yeah, yeah yeah yeah!” Ibuki nods. “Just right! Akane-chan’s smart!”

“Heh, sure,” Akane chuckles, but her grin is sarcastic. No she’s not. “Can you play it?”

“Only one song,” Ibuki puts her fingers on the end of it and strums the strings. The sound that comes out is… surprisingly melodic. “Ibuki wanted to learn more, but… y’know.” Her smile is melancholic, a look that’s foreign on features so inclined towards being passionate. “She’s always loved music… in another universe, Ibuki thinks she would be making it.”

In another universe. Akane’s chest gives that familiar old twinge, the one that she likes to suppress, because it’s painful, much too painful, and she doesn’t know how to deal with painful things, other than to ignore them. It’s hard right now, for some reason, watching Ibuki strum those strings, and Akane doesn’t care to think about why. “You should play it. That song, I mean.” Her face warms with the request and she looks away, clearing her throat. “We gotta move on soon, just, before that…”

For a moment, it seems as though Ibuki wants to say something, her gaze fixed on Akane, brow slightly furrowed and lips slightly parted. Her expression is… hard to decipher, maybe a bit wistful, maybe a bit sad. Akane’s always been so bad at picking out emotions, but she thinks she can recognise wistful and sad, just because she sees them so often. In a world like this, you can find them around practically any corner.

Instead of speaking, though, eventually Ibuki just looks down at her ukulele, and starts to play it, strumming for a while before she starts to sing.

**Author's Note:**

> the song that ibuki sings is the one in the beginning notes. and yes the song itself is in japanese. it's a good song and it sounds awfully happy for its lyrics lol


End file.
